Why not?
by Nicknack2814
Summary: The war is over and Harry is convinced Malfoy has messed with Hermione's head. Rated M for language. One shot.


"No! No! Please Harry don't do this!" Hermione screamed at her best friend as George Weasley held her, arms around her waist as he pressed her back into his chest. He looked so sad as Hermione grappled against him, trying to get free. "Please Harry! He didn't do anything!"

Harry sighed sadly, such a forlorn expression stealing across his face. He turned pained eyes from Hermione to the blonde man currently in chains, his eyes instantly flashing with anger instead.

"I don't know what you've done to her Malfoy but you'll pay for it," Harry snarled.

"He didn't do anything!" Hermione shrieked as tears streamed down her face. "He didn't Harry! You have to believe me!"

"Hermione, you want me to believe you fell in love with him of your own accord?" Harry shook his head. "I can't, it's not possible..."

"Everything is possible," Hermione whispered pleadingly. "Harry, he didn't do anything to me, please, he didn't..."

"He messed with your head Hermione and I can't let him get away with that," Harry said. "I know you don't see it right now, but whatever he's done to you is clouding your judgment."

"My judgement is fucking fine!" Hermione yelled. "Harry! Why won't you believe me?!"

"Because he's Draco fucking Malfoy Hermione! He's a fucking Death Eater! He tried to kill us all!"

Draco stood near the door of the chamber they were in, having just lost his case for freedom based purely on Harry's belief that he'd somehow messed with Hermione's mind. His hands were in shackles, Ron Weasley sneering down at him as his hand tightened on Draco's arm, chains trailing from his wrists to his feet and completing the ever fashionable 'dangerous criminal' look that he had going on. He sighed heavily, he knew this would happen.

"Harry! Please don't do this!" Hermione wailed. "Please!" She wrestled against George again, frantically trying to get out from under his grip. "Please Harry?! Don't send him to Azkaban, don't make him suffer the kiss..."

"Hermione..." Harry faltered as he turned to her. "I'm doing this for your own good."

"No you're not! You're doing it because you're angry and upset and hurt! But you're making a mistake!" Hermione cried. "Sirius was sent to prison for thirteen years for a crime he didn't commit, and no one believed he was innocent, not even his best friend!" She argued. "I know you don't believe me, but what if you're wrong, Harry?! Can you live with that?!"

"It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make," Harry said, truly believing he was doing what was best.

"NO!" Hermione screamed as Harry raised his wand, signalling the end of this discussion and therefore his ruling. He may only have been eighteen but he was given certain liberties for his defeat of Voldemort, one of which being he could try the man who messed with his best friend. "Okay, Harry you win!" Hermione screeched, her arms raised in surrender as she stopped struggling against George. "You win, okay?" Her tears were falling thick and fast now. "Just don't hurt him, please?" She asked desperately. "Send him away, banish him, put a restraining order on him, anything but what you're about to do...please?!"

"How is that going to solve anything?" Harry asked softly.

"Obliviate me," Hermione whispered.

"Granger, no!" Draco suddenly came to life.

"It's the only way," Hermione sobbed.

"Hermione?" Harry frowned.

"You promise me, you give me your word, that Draco goes free and unharmed, and I'll stop fighting you and fighting this," Hermione said. "You can just obliviate me and we can all go back to how it was..."

George's arms went slack as he looked at her in shock. "Harry, I don't think-"

"Deal," Harry said quickly, ignoring George's protestations. He tried to grab Hermione as she launched herself across the room at Draco, glaring at George for letting her go.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Draco whispered with wide, tear filled eyes.

"Saving you," Hermione sniffed, her voice aching with sadness.

"Not like this Granger, please..." Draco croaked.

"It's the only way," Hermione sighed. She leant into him and pressed her lips to his gently.

"You'd rather forget me?" He whispered as she rested her forehead against his own.

"I'd rather you live," she said.

"I won't live without _you_ , love." Draco closed his eyes, tears falling down his face.

"I won't live without you either," Hermione smiled sadly.

"You won't remember me," he said.

"They can take my memories, but they'll never truly take you," she whispered, fisting her hands in his tattered jumper and closing her eyes as she wept.

"Granger, you can't still have hope?" He asked in awe.

"Why not?" She whispered with a tiny grin.

Draco surged forward and captured her lips with his, his tears falling fast and free as he poured as much love as he could into that one last, sweet, two second kiss.

Harry nodded at Ron who tugged Malfoy out of Hermione's grasp and out the door. Hermione stumbled after them, wanting to make sure that he got out like Harry promised. George put a comforting hand on her shoulder and gave her a sincerely apologetic look. Harry gathered the necessary paperwork quickly, brandishing the documents at Malfoy like a wand. They detailed his prevention from entering the UK for the next ten years, including any and all contact with Hermione Granger.

"You're a fucking good actor, I'll give you that Malfoy," Harry spat.

"I know. How'd you think I managed to survive under the same fucking roof as the Dark Lord?" Malfoy spat back. "It's a shame that in convincing him I also ended up convincing every fucker else..."

"It's like you're starting to believe it yourself," Harry scoffed.

"She knows her own mind Potter, and someday that's going to come back and bite you in arse," Malfoy growled.

"You will never convince me that you love her Malfoy," Harry snarled. "It's just not in you."

Malfoy simply ignored him. "Take care of her," he mumbled to an astounded and somewhat confused George. George simply nodded, catching Hermione as she crumbled the minute Malfoy had disaperated away.

...

Ten years later...

It was the ten year reunion of the Class of 1990. Peace had been restored to the wizarding community and seemed to have reigned for some time. Harry unceremoniously shoved Hermione through the doors of the Great Hall of Hogwarts, his wife and brother-in-law not far behind her.

"I hate these things Harry Potter and now I hate you," Hermione hissed.

"I know," Harry said. "But we have to be here and you know it." It was, after all, ten years since the Battle of Hogwarts.

"Screw you," she snapped as Harry chuckled.

"When is Oliver getting here?" Harry asked.

"He's not, we broke up two weeks ago," Hermione said.

"What?!" Harry looked at her in annoyance. "Hermione! What was wrong with him?!"

"He just wasn't right for me," Hermione shrugged.

"That's what you've said about all your past boyfriends," Harry huffed.

"Well, it's how I've _felt_ about all my past boyfriends," Hermione growled. "None of them have felt right..."

"You're just reading too much into it," Harry sighed. "I just want you to be happy Hermione."

"I am happy, for the most part," she said. "I don't need a man to make me happy."

Before Harry could respond to that a ripple of astonished whispers floated through the room and it all went deathly quiet.

"Draco Malfoy is here," Ron muttered darkly, his eyes sweeping the crowd that had begun to part.

"Draco Malfoy?" Hermione frowned. "I barely remember him."

Harry shifted guiltily. When he'd taken Hermione to St Mungo's (he wasn't going to attempt to obliviate her himself!), the Healers had discovered that the extent of Malfoy's mind games had run deep. They'd had to erase almost every memory she had of him. George tried to argue against it but no one wanted to hear that Hermione Granger, the sweet, innocent, intelligent muggle-born heroine had fallen for Draco Malfoy, the dark, twisted, manipulative, pureblood Death Eater. George had done an extensive amount of research on love and how to fake it in someone, for the joke shop. He knew what fake love looked like and it wasn't the deep and sincere type stuff he'd seen between Draco and Hermione. It was superficial and theatrical and more of an infatuation than something tangible. Unbeknown to any of them, George had managed to argue his point to the Healers and persuaded them to hide her memories from herself rather than erase them altogether, knowing that if he was right, erasing them would have done irreparable damage whereas hiding them wouldn't have made a difference either way. He was going to be really pissed that he'd missed out on this reunion.

"Didn't he run away right after the war?" Hermione frowned. "I vaguely recall some speculation as to his whereabouts..."

"Yeah, something like that," Ron nodded. "He was an evil, lying scumbag anyway so it's not like we missed much."

"You know, you shouldn't judge people unless you've walked a mile in their shoes," Hermione reprimanded him.

"He was horrid to all of us at school," Ron stuttered in outrage. "He was a bully and a bastard and a nasty son of a bitch."

"His mother saved Harry's life, you shouldn't insult her like that, especially whilst instead trying to insult her son," Hermione huffed. "And the number one reason most children bully their peers is because they themselves have been or are being bullied."

"Who the hell was Malfoy likely to have been bullied by?" Ron scoffed.

"Dunno, but if I had to guess, I'd say his arrogant, aristocratic, arsehole of a father," Hermione said. "And I'd hazard a guess that man did worse to Draco than he ever did to us."

"That's not an excuse to be a shit to everyone around you," Harry said, panicking slightly at the apparent insight Hermione had into the blonde git despite not having any real memory of him.

"No it's not, but it certainly explains a lot," Hermione said.

Harry gently guided her around the hall, worriedly trying to keep Hermione away from the man who'd played with her head so long ago. Ginny and Ron followed his lead, always keeping eyes on the white head of hair and steering Hermione in the opposite direction.

.

Draco had been forced to attend this stupid charade of a reunion. No one wanted to see him again, no one really wanted to see any of their classmates again. Their year was full of war veterans and unless you'd bonded together in some great feat of survival, you were just a reminder of the blood and violence mostly. Blaise had practically dragged him here, no longer under the restraining order placed on him all those years ago, although Potter was looking as though he wished he'd added another ten years to it. Draco smirked, it served him right.

He wondered around the hall, not really looking at anyone in particular. He thought about Hermione and whether she'd be here tonight. He'd noticed she tended to keep to herself, never in the papers and never one for social occasions unless she could help it. Draco wasn't sure if he wanted to see her tonight, the idea of her being happy with another would be just about enough to finish him off. Having said that, since he'd apparated away all those years ago he hadn't really been able to breathe properly, so that might also be nice. During his private little musings he'd failed to realise that the bushy-haired bookworm had snuck up on him while he was lounging by the buffet table.

"You look about as happy to be here as I do," Hermione smirked.

"Would you rather be pulling your fingernails off with pliers too?" Draco forced himself to remain light and carefree, remembering that whilst his heart was hammering in his chest, hers was beating in a perfectly normal rhythm on account of how she didn't remember him, at all. (George may have been in contact for the last ten years and kept him up to date on all things Hermione, but he wasn't about to throw his only ally under the bus).

Hermione chuckled lightly as she piled some food on her plate. "Funnily enough, I _would_ rather be pulling my nails out with pliers," she said. "I have a feeling it would be much less painful and come with a lot more alcohol."

Draco laughed, a wide grin on his face the like he hadn't sported in a while. "Then I definitely am as happy as you to be here."

"At least someone is," she sighed. "I honestly don't know why I have to be here..."

"Because you're a war heroine," Draco said. "You're a symbol of hope to all..." he trailed off remembering how very similar this conversation was to the first ever civil conversation he'd had with her.

"Well I hate being a bloody symbol," she huffed. "I wish for once in my life someone would see me for just me!"

"Now _that_ I can relate to," Malfoy muttered nervously.

"Big bad Death Eater, right?" Hermione grinned.

"Right," he said, avoiding eye contact more than he'd been doing at the start of the conversation as his mind drifted back to a teenaged version of himself having practically the same conversation with a teenaged version of the same woman.

 _"Malfoy, what are you doing up here?" Hermione frowned._

 _"Nothing that concerns you Granger," he huffed._

 _"It's four in the morning and you're at the top of the astronomy tower, you're eyes have been decidedly more sunken and your skin more pale than normal. You're obviously stressed to the nines and it's affecting your sleep..."_

 _"Fuck off Granger," he snarled. "You're awake too!"_

 _"Yeah, because I'm stressed to the nines and it's affecting my sleep," she snapped._

 _"What exactly have you got to be stressed about?"_

 _"A lot actually Malfoy," she said. "A lot."_

 _"You shouldn't be talking to me," he sighed. "You're a symbol of fucking hope for your side of this bloody war, the epitome of light and innocence."_

 _"That's one of the reasons I'm up here," she said. "It's tiring always having to be perfect just to please everyone else's opinion of you."_

 _"I can relate to that," Draco said._

 _"Big bad Death Eater, right?" Hermione said, laughing at his shocked expression brought about by her choice of words._

 _"How...but..I..." he stuttered, subconsciously clasping his left arm where his mark lay hidden._

 _"I was actually messing with you," Hermione suddenly grew serious. "Did you take the mark, Malfoy?"_

 _"I got in too deep Granger and now I can't take it back," he murmured shakily._

 _"Oh fuck Malfoy!" Hermione gasped._

 _"You shouldn't be up here talking to me," he said quietly._

 _"I'm not scared of the big bad Death Eater," she said._

 _"It's not a fucking joke!"_

 _"I know." She approached him slowly and gently, taking hold of his arm and pushing up his sleeve to reveal his mark. She shook her head sadly._

 _"Why are you still here? Why are you still talking to me?" He whispered._

 _She looked up into his eyes and smiled softly. "Why not?"_

Draco shivered as the memory of that night replayed over and over in his head. It was the start of a forbidden friendship culminating in a forbidden love. Hermione's reasoning always being 'why not?' and Draco having adopted that stance since she'd first uttered it to him. Why not? Why not risk everything for something special? Why not share our secrets with each other? Why not hope for a brighter future? Why not fall so far and so deep that there was no way back out? Why not? Why not? Why not?

"Are you okay? I didn't mean to offend you," Hermione said quietly.

"No, you didn't, it's fine," he said, shaking himself out of it quickly. "I'm just not used to people talking to me all that much."

"It takes more than a big bad Death Eater to scare me," Hermione chuckled.

Draco felt his heart stop beating and his eyes tear up. He couldn't do this, not like this. She was here and standing beside him, laughing and joking like she had done before. Like she had done when she was his only lifeline and link to sanity. He wanted to look at her so badly, to take her in his arms and kiss her soundly. And it hurt to know that it would likely result in a slap and his very public arrest.

"Granger..." Draco murmured, trying to ignore the heavy ache in his chest. He could see Harry, Ron and Ginny moving swiftly towards him, Hermione having been harder to tail than they anticipated. "It's not a joke..." he whispered.

"I know," she frowned, a cute little confused expression on her face.

Draco couldn't help himself. "Why are you still here? Why are you still talking to me?"

"Why not?" Hermione said, her eyes growing wide as the words left her lips, memories tumbling through her mind the way those words had tumbled out of her mouth. "Draco..." she breathed, her eyes pooling with tears.

Harry had managed to catch up to her and Draco felt very afraid for him as her expression morphed from one of shock and disbelief to complete and utter outrage.

Harry stopped an inch or two behind her. "Hermione-ahh!"

Harry stumbled back as Hermione swung her fist and connected it to his nose, effectively breaking it.

"Harry James Potter I am so livid with you right now that there aren't words!" She seethed.

"Fucking hell Hermione!" Harry cried, clutching his nose. "What the fuck did you do to her Malfoy?!"

"NOTHING!" Hermione bellowed. "THE SAME AS LAST BLOODY TIME YOU COMPLETE AND UTTER GIT!"

"Hermione he messed with your head-wait...how do you remember that?!" Harry frowned at her, his nose bleeding profusely.

"The healers hid my memories instead of erasing them," Hermione said. "They had it on good authority that if my feelings were honest and true, like I'd been telling you, it would do an immeasurable amount of damage to my brain if they'd been removed."

"What?" Harry gaped at her.

"Why Harry? Why couldn't you just trust me? Just that once?" Hermione looked at him forlornly. "After everything we'd been through, after all the times I'd followed you and trusted you without question and yet...you couldn't grant me the same favour...?"

"He's Draco Malfoy..." Harry explained lamely.

"You didn't even give me chance to tell you what happened," Hermione said. "You never even asked how we ended up together. No one did. You all just assumed that black was black and white was white, and nobody wanted to hear about the muggleborn and the Death Eater, much less believe it."

"I still don't," Ron said savagely.

"There is no way in hell I'm going to let you mess with my head again," Hermione hissed at them. "I only did it the first time to save him..."

"You've been stood chatting to him long enough for him to have spelled you again," Ron argued.

"I didn't do anything!" Draco cried, realising they'd gathered quite the crowd by now. "I didn't do anything the last time and I didn't do anything this time! I didn't even know she still had all her memories, I thought they'd all been erased!"

"They should have been," Harry said.

"And had that been the case, I'd have ended up practically comatose for the rest of my life," Hermione snapped. "Or is that also a sacrifice you'd have been willing to make? And then live with?!"

"What are you talking about Hermione?!" Ginny cried. "Obliviate wouldn't have done that much damage-"

"It would have done, because my time with Draco changed my heart and my soul, and without my memories of him my mind would have been unable to assimilate those changes," Hermione explained. "My brain would have practically melted."

"How do we know this isn't some new spell he's put on you? Messing with your head again? Maybe an imperious?!" Harry huffed.

Draco shoved his wand into Harry's hand and glared at the man who was looking in shock at him. "Test it," Draco growled. "Test me, whatever it takes to convince you."

"Nothing will ever convince me that you love her," Harry snarled, repeating his words from ten years ago.

"It's not you he has to convince," Hermione said, tears in her eyes. "You'll never be happy for me, will you? Not unless I'm whatever version of happy you think I should be?"

"Hermione-"

"You didn't even look into it," Hermione said.

"Into what?" Harry frowned.

"Into love spells and potions," she said. "You made up your mind and that was that. You never even bothered to find out if you were right or wrong."

"What exactly would I have found?" he said. "What on earth is out there that would have shaken my resolve on this matter? He's Draco fucking Malfoy, and you want me to believe he what? Turned into a nice guy?"

"Don't be so ridiculous Harry!" Hermione huffed. "I said I fell in love with him I never said he was a nice fucking guy!"

"What?" Harry's jaw dropped and he looked at her stunned while Draco snorted from beside her.

"Something unexpected happened not a bloody miracle," Hermione said.

"But if he's not a nice guy...?" Ginny frowned.

"He's Draco Malfoy, he's an arsehole and he always will be!" Hermione said in exasperation. "Did it never occur to any of you that I loved him in spite of that, not that I was being completely duped into believing he was someone else?" Obviously no one answered. "If I was worried enough to believe you'd had your mind played with, the last thing I would do is go poking at it myself without at least opening a few books to make damn sure I was right," she said quietly, a hurt entering her voice that hadn't been there up till now. "I'd make sure that my own biases and prejudices weren't a part of the reason I was unable to believe you. I'd check and check again that there was no possible way what you were saying was real, or really you...I wouldn't have convicted my best friend to a half life of half happinesses because something _always_ felt missing."

"Hermione..." Harry shook his head, unable to say anything.

"Harry, you're heart is usually in the right place, and I know you never did this to hurt me," Hermione said. "But regardless of that, you did. All of you did. And now all I feel is betrayed and untrusted by my closest friends because I dared feel something they disagreed with. If you'd opened a book, if you'd looked into it a little bit, you'd have come across a lovely little bit of research that discovered when a person is forced into love, when it's fake, the last thing they'd ever do is willingly volunteer to give it up."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ginny frowned.

"She made us a deal, her memories for Malfoy's freedom," Harry said, unable to get past the monumental cockup he'd made that was now currently staring him in the face.

"What?" Ginny whispered, looking between her husband, her brother, her best friend and the blonde idiot whose fault she was still adamant it was, even if she blamed him in a slightly different way now.

"It was her idea to obliviate all her memories," Ron murmured. "She just made Harry promise that Malfoy wouldn't end up in Azkaban or with the dementor's kiss."

"You idiots! No wonder George got so angry with you!" Ginny cried.

"Why was that the reason George was angry?" Harry looked perplexed now.

"Because he was probably trying to explain all that to you and you wouldn't listen!" Ginny steamed. "He has done an extensive amount of research on love for the joke shop products."

"Dammit!" Harry cried. "Hermione I'm so sorry..."

"I know you are, and I thank you for your apology. I'm also not likely to get over it anytime soon," she said. "I have to be honest about that...you ruined my life, between the two of you, you ruined everything!" She let out a wobbly breath. "Ten years...ten whole years I've been jumping from one partner to the next and nothing has ever felt right and now I know why!"

Harry sighed despairingly. "I know Hermione and I'm so sorry-"

"Apparently I was reading too much into things, and you just wanted to see me happy," Hermione said, her voice beginning to break. "All the signs were there Harry, you just didn't want to see them."

"It wasn't like that Hermione," Harry said.

"But it was," Hermione said sadly. "It was like that. You hated Malfoy more than you loved me."

"That's not true!" Harry cried.

"Isn't it?" Hermione said. "Then how come you never trusted me? Trusted what I was saying? How come you never tried to find out the truth? How come you never went further than just ordering the healers to make me forget?"

"I...I...I don't know. I don't have an answer for that," Harry's voice cracked. "You're the voice of reason behind my rashness, you're the voice that makes me think all those things through and I just...I couldn't hear that that's what you were still trying to do. I just heard, I heard, that you loved the man I hated most in the world."

Hermione shrugged as though she already knew this, as though he'd just proven her point, which he basically had.

"Where does this leave us?" Harry asked.

"All of us?" Ron said.

"Broken," Hermione answered.

"Can we mend?" Harry said hopefully.

"Well, that all depends on what happens next?" Hermione said, shifting a little awkwardly and playing with her fingers as she shot a sideways look at Draco.

.

Draco was still looking at her in shock and disbelief and awe and amazement. The man looked like all his dreams had come true, and all his Christmases and birthdays and wishes had come true, all at once.

"I don't understand?" Harry said, looking between her and Draco. Draco also was a bit lost.

"It's been ten years," Hermione said. "I know I didn't move on, even without realising that's what I was doing...I know I still love him but...I don't know how he feels."

"What's that got to do with our friendships?" Ron frowned.

"It's going to be infinitely easier to forgive you and move forward if the love of my life is also still in love with me..." she said nervously.

"Oh come on Granger!" Draco cried as he suddenly realised what she was saying. "That's not fair!" He whined, unable to keep the biggest grin he'd ever had from making its way onto his face. "I have to choose between you and making Potter infinitely more miserable than I think I've ever seen him?! You know how I feel about tormenting the git!"

"So you didn't move on?" She asked hopefully, turning to face him and feeling her breath hitch in her throat as her eyes met his intense gaze. Ten years she'd been missing this part of herself and her whole body ached at being so near him and yet so far away.

"No, I didn't move on," he said. "I gave my heart to this heinous woman who was too stubborn to leave me alone like she should have done, and she didn't give it back when she left."

"At least you lived," Hermione whispered, "I'm sorry..."

"I told you then and I'll tell you again now," Draco sighed softly as he wiped away a falling tear from her cheek, "I never lived without you, love."

"I didn't really live without you either," Hermione smiled sadly.

"I actually feel rather smug about that," he admitted. "No memories of me and still no one could compare." He chuckled when she slapped him playfully.

"I can't believe you continued to hope," Hermione said proudly.

"I nearly didn't several times," he sighed. "I very nearly gave up more than once. Not on you or us, just on hoping that we'd ever get a chance to see it through."

"What changed your mind? Why'd you hold on? Why'd you keep on hoping in the end?" She said.

"Why not?" He whispered with a small shrug.

Hermione broke, seeing the adoration in his eyes and hearing her own words roll off the tip of his tongue. She sobbed as she felt his arms encircle her waist and his strong hands grip her hard enough to keep her up but soft enough not to hurt. She buried her face in his chest and breathed in, relishing in a scent she hadn't even known she'd missed.

"Merlin Granger, you have no idea how much I missed you," Malfoy murmured, tightening his hold.

Hermione sniffed and looked up at him, suddenly realising they were no longer in the Great Hall. "Where are we?"

"I didn't want an audience," Draco said with a shrug. "We're on the astronomy tower."

"How? I didn't even realise we were moving..." she said.

"I carried you," he grinned.

"I'm sorry I did that to you," Hermione whispered.

"You weren't that heavy, it's fine," he smirked.

"That's not what I meant and you know it," Hermione said. "I'm sorry I put you through that. I'm sorry I chose to forget. I'm sorry I left you-"

Draco leant forward and captured her lips with his own. His heart beat rapidly in his chest as he felt her fingers slide across his shoulders and around his neck before she combed them through his hair and grabbed fistfuls, pulling him closer. His own hands wound around her waist and gripped her hips, pushing her into him and allowing them to become far more re-acquainted than Draco ever thought possible. He could feel the heat of her body, the softness of her curves against him and the rapid rise and fall of her chest against his. He ran his tongue against her lips and groaned when hers came to meet it. Their kiss grew heated and passionate, but with every stroke of skin and kiss of lips they poured over ten years worth of love and devotion, of hope and happiness.

They broke the kiss amidst a few light laughs and deep panting, Draco resting his forehead on hers with his eyes closed.

"Fucking hell Granger, you better not be a dream," he murmured.

"If I am, you can stay with me," she smiled.

"You've said that before," he whispered sadly.

"Perhaps we should just stay awake for as long as we can," she smoothed her thumb across his cheek as she rested her hand on his face. Her eyes were locked with his, deep brown melting in stone grey.

"Perhaps, but it didn't work last time," he sighed.

"It will this time. I promise," she said softly. "But just in case, if we only have tonight, what's the one thing in all the world you want to do?"

"Marry you," Draco said without hesitation. Hermione blinked. "Will you marry me?" He asked, a hint of nervousness to his tone.

Hermione looked at him, her gaze deep and her thoughts running around her head at a hundred miles a minute. She frowned in contemplation and then smiled widely before answering him. "Why not?"


End file.
